4th Sunday of Advent

 Today was the 4th Sunday of Advent, and after the lighting of the 4th Advent Candle our choir presented  our cantata, "Christmas Forever Amen", and per my promise, here is the recording from our dress rehearsal.  I hope you will enjoy this Christmas message in song.  

After church our kids came over for lunch and Rose and I had a plan to make some Chex party mix and other Christmas snacks using different Chex cereals, etc.  Here we are:

Rose is making the traditional Chex Party Mix recipe that you can find on the back of most Chex cereals.  It uses all three, rice, corn, and wheat chex, plus we added cheerios, pretzels and mixed nuts. 

And I am making the kind that has white chocolate (almond bark) covering it, and it has cheerios, corn and rice chex, pretzels and peanuts.

Here are our trays of finished products:

Oh, Rose made one more, "Muddy Buddies" or "Puppy Chow" mix, and it uses chocolate, peanut butter, and powdered sugar, among other ingredients. I'm not going to post recipes because you can pull up these recipes online pretty easily.  Some are a little different than others and you can adapt them to suit your tastes!

I'm not sure where all of this is going yet...we divided it up between us and we may be sharing it with some people if it doesn't get eaten up before we can share it! LOL.  The main thing is we enjoyed doing this together, like a real "mother and daughter" kind of day, even though we are mother in law and daughter in law...I'm thankful we both enjoy each other's company and have fun spending time together. That is a true blessing.  I didn't take a picture of it, but this morning in church Benton and Rose helped to serve communion, and watching them standing there together serving the Lord's Supper to our church family nearly brought me to tears. It was a special moment that I treasure in my heart.

After Rose and I got finished mixing up all those snacks, we sat down to rest while they cooled and/or set before we could pack them up in containers.  While we were doing that, we were enjoying time with the guys, who were watching football, and then I remembered that we had received a special package in the mail for someone "extra special" in our house, and her name is Lily Grace. The package came from her "Auntie Debbi" in South Carolina, who is the dear blogging friend who sent Lily Grace to me in the first place. In true "Auntie" fashion, she sends Lily Christmas packages full of fun stuff every year. She had given permission for Lily to open the package before Christmas, and so we decided today would be a good time to do that while we were all together.  (If you aren't familiar with Lily Grace's story, you can click HERE for her arrival to our home about three years ago. And then Lily became so popular, she started writing her own blog, The Adventures of Lily Grace. However, because she needed my help to keep up with her blog posts, I'm afraid we kind of got lost by the wayside as I just couldn't keep up with writing two blogs, so now she mostly makes cameo appearances here on my blog posts, like today:

Here's how the package looked when it arrived in the mail:

And here's how excited Lily Grace was when she discovered a present wrapped up inside with her name on it:

It's so much fun to receive packages in the mail, isn't it?  Sure beats a gift card any day!

Lily Grace was thrilled to find a picture of her identical cousin Tracie in the box...

And Tracie had sent her a note on the picture that says:

"Dear Lily Grace, When I picked out my Christmas dress, I asked Mommy if I could send you one just like it and she said YES! So we can be twins!"

It's really too bad that Tracie lives in South Carolina, which is kind of far away, but maybe someday they will get to be together again and then they can wear their identical dresses and be twins!

Isn't it beautiful?

Also there were some other special gifts in the box...a little laptop computer, and goldfish bowl, (with a little goldfish in it!)

And  some pretty beads and best of all a CAMERA!

Lily said: "And can you imagine my excitement when I discovered that the camera really works? Well, it flashes when you press the button! See?"

"I can't wait to take lots of pictures!"

Meanwhile, as this was all going on, some "one" was watching it all with much interest:

Yes, that's Spice, one of our grandpuppies, and she was SO curious about who that was in "Grandma's lap" getting so many new toys!  She was just about to leap out of Rose's lap and come and check this thing out:

And then she did, and she got her sister Sugar to come and see what was going on too:

They were both SO curious about Lily Grace and her new toys:

Thankfully they just sniffed and watched, but didn't try to take her new toys away! LOL.

They were more interested in the train going round and round the village:

(This video was actually taken the night before, when the kids were over for supper, which Rose and I made together, Pasta, Ground beef and fresh mushrooms in a homemade alfredo sauce, a tossed salad and garlic toast. It was YUMMY!, but I digress)

Anyway, the doggies  finally got more interested in watching the train again and Lily Grace was able to go show her friends her new outfit and gifts that she received from Aunt Debbi.

 It was a lovely day and "one little girl" was sure surprised and happy!  

Meanwhile, you may have noticed the arrangement on the dining room table from the picture of the dinner from last night:

I cut some fresh holly from the trees and also some sprigs from a small cedar tree that is growing wild, and added them to these cedar candle holders that Benton had made for me a few years ago. It made a lovely little fresh winter arrangement.  

After supper I decided I needed to put the greenery in some water so they wouldn't die:

So I made a little arrangement in a glass pitcher of water to hopefully prolong their life so we can enjoy them for a few more days.  (If you look real carefully, you will see hubby in the background sitting in his recliner and watching football while I am doing this.  He's probably oblivious to all this activity going on over on the table and also the following added interesting item:

Somehow, unbeknownst to me, I was making a video of myself carrying the pitcher of water with the greenery back to the table and setting it on the table. I had no idea the camera was recording this, and if you listen carefully at the very beginning of the video you can hear me whispering something to myself...something unintelligible! LOL. I have no clue what I was saying, but it looks like I am walking through a jungle until I get to the table. I just thought I might as well add this video to this post to go along with all the other fun and crazy stuff of the past couple of days! Maybe it will give you a good laugh or two.

Well, if you've made it this far in this post today, I thank you for hanging in there with me. I realize it's been a bit long and filled with a mish mash of things, but I hope you enjoyed coming along with me for the past couple of days of fun activities.  If you listened to the video at the beginning of this post of our Cantata, you will have already heard our choir sing this song. It would be difficult to go back and find this one song out of the whole program, so I am posting this one for you, not our choir singing of course.  This was one of the songs that had a beautiful message that I wanted to leave with you for tonight:  Rose of Bethlehem...

"There's a Rose in Bethlehem

With a beauty quite divine

Perfect in this world of sin

On this silent, holy night

There's a fragrance much like hope

That it sends upon the wind

Reaching out to every soul

From a lowly manger's crib

Oh, Rose of Bethlehem

How lovely, pure and sweet

Born to glorify the Father

Born to wear the thorns for me

There's a Rose in Bethlehem

Colored red like mercy's blood

It's the flower of our faith

It's the blossom of God's love

Though its bloom is fresh with youth

Surely what will be He knows

For a tear of morning dew

Is rolling down the Rose

Oh, Rose of Bethlehem

How lovely, pure and sweet

Born to glorify the Father

Born to wear the thorns for me

There's a Rose in Bethlehem

With a beauty quite divine

Perfect in this world of sin

On this silent, holy night

Oh, Rose of Bethlehem

How lovely, pure and sweet

Born to glorify the Father

Born to wear the thorns for me"

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Lowell Alexander

Jesus was that "Rose of Bethlehem", lovely, pure and sweet.  He was born to glorify the Father, and born to wear those thorns for me...and you, and everyone who will believe in Him and accept Him as Savior and Lord. That's the real message of Christmas. Jesus came as a baby, but He grew to be a perfect, sinless Man, God in the flesh. He wore that crown of thorns on His brow when He went to the cross to die for you and me.  He was sinless, we were sinful, but He wore those thorns for us, so that we might be made pure and sinless and be able to enter heaven to live with Him forever. Such a powerful, beautiful message.  Makes you really think about a rose and those thorns on it a little differently as well. Something to consider when we come to the manger to see the Baby Jesus on Christmas, isn't it?  He wore those thorns for you and me.  

Good night my friends. It's going to be a busy week for all of us, so we may be kind of hit and miss in our reading and posting, but we'll all get back to "normal" once all the excitement of the holidays simmers back down.  God bless you each and everyone.